Healing After Relationship with a Narcissist

The fourth anniversary of the dark discovery of my ex’s betrayal is approaching. For some reason, four years feels like a significant milestone. I did not even notice or write about the two or three-year anniversaries. The approaching date weighs heavily on my life, darkening the light which I have found in the interim.

When writing about a traumatic event, the cliché closure technique is for the writer to emphasize that while the experience was painful and challenging , he or she is stronger and wiser in the aftermath. However, four years have passed, and for me, this is not so. I feel wiser, but it is a cold wise based on a lack of trust for others. Instead of stronger, I feel weaker and diminished, as if his use of me as a disposable item rendered me less of a person.

I have not wallowed in despair during the past four years, nor have I fallen prey to self-pity. I have executed positive actions toward healing including seeing a therapist, beginning a meditation practice, writing down though processes on this blog, creating a dream journal and taking art classes.

Yet, the overall feeling from the experience is one of loss. Not loss of this man or his supposed love, but the loss of my faith in life an in myself to make the right decisions.

Share this:

Like this:

It has been a long time since I have written about my experience of recovery after a relationship with a narcissist.

My last entry of May 19, 2013 is, ‘What I Lost‘. After I wrote this post, which details hitting the bottom of my loss, something interesting began to happen to me. I transcended the experience and all the chaff fell away from me. In retrospect, it felt as if the proverbial scales fell from my eyes. Once reaching the bottom, and taking inventory of the emotional toll, I was able to rebuild.

This man, who had dominated many years of my adult life, has ceased to matter. I saw that his love for me had been a fraud from the beginning, and so the loss of it no longer mattered.

Instead of feeling that I’d lost my true love, I recognize that I lost precious time and energy. The relationship also cost me a great deal of money.

The silver lining in the ending of this relationship was that I live one hundred miles away from this man. I have been able to keep my promise to myself in this regard. I urge all my readers struggling after the breakup of a relationship with a narcissist, sociopath, etc., to practice the fine art of “No-Contact”. It is the best and fastest way to heal from a relationship a person who lacks empathy.

Share this:

Like this:

English: This is the title screen from the ABC series Lost. Español: Este es el título principal de la serie Lost. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thirty months have passed since I ended a relationship with a pathological liar with sociopath tendencies. For the most part, I am far removed from the relationship now. I can go a few days in a row without thinking about it. I remember when it was impossible to even get through a minute without thinking about it, back in the first few weeks, and of training myself to not think about him or his betrayal for five minutes, then an hour at a time. It took a long time and a lot of slow painful, draining emotional work. It has taken its toll on my spirit.

I think back upon that time as a traumatic event in my life from which I am still recovering. The term ‘soul damage’ repeatedly comes to mind. I am finding that similar to most traumatic events, I get triggered into thinking about it again when certain things happen in my current life. Last week, the sudden death of a friend triggered the feelings of trauma. I began to feel re- traumatized and began reliving parts of it again. The feeling of initial shock, of denial, that it was happening.

In reviewing the event this past week, I realized that the experience had made me aware, thirty months into the future, of things, mostly within myself, which I had lost through living through his betrayal. These are all things which I possessed prior to hearing from him back in 2007. Some of these things I have partially recovered and others I am still working on. Some just are gone from me, and I don’t know how to go about getting them back:

Share this:

Like this:

Many of my readers have asked for advice on what to do when the mother or father of their children is Cluster B. I wish I knew how to answer this question.

I’m very sorry to say that I don’t have an answer. I have one very close friend in this predicament with a school age child, and know other people who have struggled with this situation.

I consider myself lucky in that many years ago, when I was twenty two years old, I realized that my husband was severely screwed up. I took the baby and I left. I did not give him a forwarding address but wrote to him telling him to contact me through my father when and if he got his shit together. I heard from him once, a couple months after I left. I had moved to another state. This was before the days of the internet and I felt safe and secure that he would not be able to find me. I did not have my name on a lease, nor did I have a telephone number listed. My father forwarded me the letter from my husband. In it, he threatened legal action against me for having taken our child out of state without his permission. As he was up to his ears in dealing drugs, I ignored the letter, as I knew that he would not contact the police.

I did not hear from him again for eighteen years. Many people insisted that I was foolish for not ‘going after’ child support from him. A couple of these were state workers at the welfare office. I figured out that I could get the state health insurance for my daughter and myself and also food stamps without involving my husband. But these well meaning social workers insisted that I needed to get the child support. I did not understand why people wanted me to get child support from a drug dealer as that would instantly give him knowledge of our whereabouts. It was the best decision I have ever made, to leave, take the baby and not seek child support.

So I guess that is the best advice which I can give. If there is any way to cut the person out of your child’s life, do so. If you can sign away child support in exchange for no visitation, and you can afford to live without it, then do it. My daughter and I lived on fumes for years. Lentil soup and oatmeal. No car. We took the bus everywhere. Of course it was very hard. I was able to do it because I was in my twenties and physically very fit. Not everyone could live the way we lived in order to go without child support. Now, in my forties, I do not have that kind of energy.

Eventually we moved to the other side of the country. I continued to get food stamps and medical assistance but to never apply for welfare. I told my daughter what I believed was the truth: that her father was a drug addict and that’s why I had left him and why we did not see him. I did not know at the time that underneath the drugs was the darker side of his personality disorder.

The only positive aspect of my story is that my daughter was able to meet her father when she was an adult and form her own opinion of him based on his actions during the three years he was recently involved in our lives. She has decided, after this trial run, to not include him in her life, based on his actions, deception, lies, lifestyle, choice of activities and associates.

I am proud that she was not subjected to his manipulative personality disorder so that he did not have a chance to warp her emotionally.

My heart goes out to all of you who have children with a Cluster B type, and I hope that you are able to make the best possible outcome in the situation.

Share this:

Like this:

This AMAZING post has been republished with permission from the author of the Facebook page, “The Path to Peace- Recovery From Psychotic Manipulation and Abuse” (http://www.facebook.com/hercules48).

Enjoy,

Ixchel

“I have something weighing heavily on my heart…two things really…Recovery is lost when we continue to see the pathological as having had any “humane” or “human” hearted qualities that involve anything more than what a predator is or does, throughout the relationship. Please pay attention to this:

He/she was, is and forever WILL BE incapable of loving you. Whatever you shared between you WAS NOT REAL. What you felt was real, whatever he/she told you, did, said, was, WAS ALL A LIE, A FACADE, A MANIPULATION, A MINDFUCK. In order to heal, you MUST understand this with your ENTIRE BEING. You MUST find a way to accept this and write it ALL OVER THE CORNERS OF YOUR MIND AND YOUR SOUL. If it was anything you perceived as sincere or kind, that was MANIPULATION. If you perceived their blame, projection, abuse as having ANYTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH ANYTHING YOU SAID OR DID, IT IS A LIE. This IS what they want you to do. THEY WANT YOU TO ACCEPT SHAME AND BLAME. ANd it’s so much easier to do that, than it is to accept that this “person” FAKED an entire relationship with you to get what they wanted out of you. THAT IS ALL. NOTHING MORE.

In taking inventory of my part in my relationship with my ex, the SECOND I projected, attributed ANY scene between us, any “emotion” i perceived he was feeling, as some sort of “soul” connection, even in a sick and twisted way, I FORFEITED MY TRUE OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT ME AND JUST INVITED THE BASTARD BACK INTO MY WORLD AND ACCEPTED HIS SHAME…AGAIN!

True inventory looks something like this: “I reacted to my abuser this way because______.” and/or, “I was prey for my predatory abuser because it was familiar”… “What were the red flags about my ABUSER that I missed?” “I stayed in the relationship because I had NO self esteem, NO boundaries, etc”.

WHAT about any of that, has ANYTHING to do with HIM, other than that I was PREY? When you continue to humanize your ex and the relationship, you are still hanging onto a non existent fantasy in your head. These people are not capable of ONE OUNCE OF AUTHENTIC, GENUINE EXCHANGE OR LOVE. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT YOU AND IT ISN’T NOW, but YOUR HEALING AND WHY, WHY, WHY you were there and WHY you stayed ARE.

The longer you hang onto a sentence, an emotion, an act of what you perceive as sincerity or love for you, or some “connection” shared, you will NOT heal from this. It’s a guarantee. Absolutely.

I realize how incredibly difficult, and probably the most challenging of all, it is to understand, accept and FULLY INTEGRATE that whatever exchanges you had, WERE NOT SHARED BY THIS PERSON. EVER. It was a GAME to them. Whatever PERCEIVED SUFFERING out of them was MANIPULATION. These people are EXCELLENT at the pity party. This is DRAMA they created and DRAMA you keep moving through your head like a Hollywood screen play. STOP. THE. DRAMA.

You shared nothing but a pathological bond. That’s it. A TRAUMA BOND. I think I need to put the trauma bond signs up again. The SICKNESS in us, is our PARTICIPATION (but WHY) and that when we are out, we LONG for it. We reminisce in a way that makes them somehow HUMAN. If our connection to them was not going to be a soul mate status in love, it will be a soul mate status in sickness? do you SEE how unhealthy that is??

Here is what is helping me tremendously: While I call him my ex while speaking on here, in my head, this man is MY ABUSER. HE IS MY EX PSYCHOPATH. HE USED ME. HURT ME. MANIPULATED AND MIND FUCKED ME. WHAT AM I “LONGING” FOR? MORE PAIN? WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM? WHY DO I THINK I WANT MY ABUSER BACK? WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS CLEARLY MENTALLY ILL AND RISK MY LIFE, MY HEART, MY FINANCES, MY GENITALIA TO A PSYCHOPATH?

THAT IS WHAT IT REALLY WAS!!!

I understand how badly you want to hang onto one glimmer of ANYTHING that remotely resembles a ‘soul” connection to the predator, but that isn’t possible. It never was. People who are capable of love, care and kindness, do not do what these people do. This is part of the SLIME you are left with and what they HOPE you take with you…this belief that even one second in the relationship meant a damned thing. IT DIDN’T. IT DID NOT.

I know how excrutiating this is. I understand what a deep and traumatizing wound it is, but unless you LET GO OF THIS FANTASY OF SOUL CONNECTION, GOOD OR BAD< YOU WILL NOT HEAL. And you won’t get to the truth of your part in it.

We were exploited. There wasn’t anything about any of us, and our abusers that didn’t SPELL EXPLOITATION for them. NOTHING.

Sincerity, love, hope, caring, passion, predictability, kindness, compassion, all of those BEAUTIFUL things in a relationship, WERE NEVER THERE WITH THEM.

Haven’t you all experienced what Natalie Lu from Baggage Reclaim calls the “reset button” out of these people? You have an argument and they come back five minutes, hours or days later and pretend nothing ever happened? that EXACT thing also occurred with any “GOOD” stuff your perceiving. Most of you are out of the relationship now and while some of you are still longing, some of you moving toward the part where you are purging your own piece of this crazy assed puzzle, THEY HAVE MOVED ON AS IF YOU DON”T EXIST. They remember NOTHING of what you “shared” GOOD OR BAD. It is as if you NEVER HAPPENED. NORMAL PEOPLE DON”T DO THAT and this is why you struggle so much. You are projecting your OWN FEELINGS and PERCEPTIONS onto this person of words, scenes that happened during the relationship that meant NOTHING to them. Please work hard on this. Replace words of connection, good or bad with REALITY. When you can really do this, you will see that every single thing they ever said, did or acted upon was for the sole purpose of EXPLOITING you. NOTHING MORE.

When you can do this, you will be in a place to look at your part in it realistically, without the shame, the massive amounts of unnecessary guilt, blame, self sabotage and incrimination. do not take on what was NOT yours. Do not ACCEPT what was not YOURS to accept in the first place. Do not ROMANTICIZE them in the slightest. GOOD OR BAD.

Here’s mine now: What on earth made me prey for a predator? Why was I attracted to an abuser? What in my life, in my past, needs healing, BADLY? Why didn’t I have boundaries? Why didn’t i have self esteem? Why did I IGNORE the red flags? Was this familiar to me? If so, WHY? How can I make sure that this NEVER, EVER happens to me again? And so on….

I’m being repetitive here. This is so important to recovery and is a pivotal point in it, because the closer you REALLY GET to pulling up YOUR CRAP is when your brain is going to want to mosey on back to your ABUSER and romanticize it all…. You see part of recognizing your darkness is to understand why it was there in the first place. Whatever went on in the relationship, was manifesting that darkness inside of you. Ironically, this has NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM AT ALL. This will happen with each and every human being that has the GREATEST MISFORTUNE OF CROSSING THEIR PATH. They will play out the pathological crazy assed mind fuck with EVERY single victim.

You will not. Whatever you did in the relationship, from lying, to reacting, to sexual deviancy, to physically abusing back,…whatever you did in the relationship in response to the bond, you MUST FORGIVE YOURSELF. YOU MUST understand that while you were “there” in the physical sense, that when you are in a pathological, very sick relationship with a very sick human being, there is NO WAY you are not going to become sick IN IT. THe gift lies in being OUT OF IT. The gift is that you have empathy. The gift is that you no longer have to do any of those things that you did in the relationship. You must look at this REALISTICALLY so you can heal. Even if there are pieces of the “darkness” left in you after this, give yourself A BREAK and some TIME to deal with it. Whatever you did in the relationship is not because you are a bad person. It’s because you were WITH a very bad person. This distinction MUST be made so you can look at your stuff without the temptation of moving into drama mode about them and that somehow this was YOUR doing. We ALL make mistakes, and as long as we are here we will continue too. We are human beings, IMPERFECT. But the difference is that we LEARN from it, GROW from it, GAIN INSIGHT FROM IT AND NEVER LET IT OR WANT IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Please think about this. Turn the drama and fantasy on its head…so let’s start with a little honesty and reality shall we? …

I feel like Humpty Dumpty after the fall. The moment that my lover’s lies began to unravel, gaining speed exponentially, I fell from my wall of delusion. Then, I spent over a year lying on the ground in a condition I can only describe as emotional paralysis. Next I staggered around, trying to make sense of what had happened to me.

In what I hope is my recovery, I keep getting tangled up in this idea of soul mates. Of course, it is the concept of soul mates which caused me to lower my guard and be taken in by the manipulative liar for the second time in my life.

He and I seemed to share such closeness which I have never shared with anyone before. Yet, it turned out to not be closeness after all; he was play acting at being my perfect mate in order to woo me and win my love. He had this way of seeming to be right inside my head. However, towards the end, when I was wondering what was going on while he was devaluing me, one thing which I noticed was how very far away he seemed. Also, I had noticed that his mind/soul which had been initially completely open to me, had slowly closed down, making him seem more of a stranger during each of our last visits.

“How could he be the love of my life?” My brain reasons with my heart. “If he simply switched his affections from me to his new girlfriend? If he was making love to us both with the same passionate intensity?”

I lived without him for twenty years and yet, once he came back into my life, he filled me completely so that I felt never alone, and wondered how I could have existed those long years without him.

Now, all these many months into my recovery from his psychological abuse, lies, manipulation and cheating, I still find myself missing him. We live 100 miles apart and so we spent tens of thousands of minutes on the phone. We spoke constantly. Now I realize that for much of the relationship, he was inventing outings with friends which were really sexual encounters with his new girlfriend. When he called me up around dinner on Sunday evenings after an afternoon ‘watching football’, he’d actually been fucking Lisa. It is so bizarre to think about, because then he and I would ‘spend’ Sunday evenings ‘together’ on the phone. First we’d watch 60 Minutes and then Nature.

When I’d first discovered his betrayal, I assumed Lisa knew about me. I’m not so sure anymore. Of course, she knew that he’d been dating me, but I’m guessing that during our ‘fight’ in May a couple years ago, he told her that he was finished with me. And that’s when he first went to bed with her. So when he picked it back up with me in June, he had the plan of stringing us both along. It’s amazing. Only victims of Cluster B types can understand how much time is spent in the aftermath trying to sort out all these details and figure out what actually happened, who knew what, and how much was lies and manipulation.

There are days when I feel fine. My life is picking up in exciting ways. My career is moving forward. I am trying new activities and getting back into shape. And yet, there are times when I feel so alone without him, but I am realizing that it is not him that I miss but the feeling of not being alone.

This is the allure of the Cluster B Mindfuck. The Cluster B personality enters your life and quickly establishes intimacy with you. This intimacy, which turns out to be an illusion, makes you feel like you are closer to the Cluster B person than to anyone else on the planet. You new lover ‘gets into’ your head; he knows your favorite songs, buys you jewelry with your favorite stones, praises all that is unique about you.

However, you can eventually tell that this is false intimacy when he devalues and discards you and moves on to his next victim/lover. He will use the same bag of tricks with her, producing in her the same feeling of deep connection.

“Alright”, my heart says to my brain, “If this was false intimacy, then what is real intimacy?”

The truth is, that if you have spent many years ‘in love’ with a Cluster B personality, then you may have a very hard time answering this question.

Share this:

Like this:

Grooved body of a Second World War-era U.S. Mk 2 grenade. The grooves covering the exterior of the grenade cause it to break into many pieces when it detonates (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Twenty months ago, I discovered that the ‘love of my life’ had been living a secret life. This discovery ended our relationship, which spanned twenty-five years, a marriage and a child.

During the following year, I was able to put the pieces of our lives together in retrospect and realize that my ex has Narcissistic and Anti Social Personality disorders,which are both Cluster B personality disorders according to the DSM IV.
Initially, to describe my discovering that he’d been tricking me in so many devious ways, I used the analogy of a grenade blowing up my heart.

Nearly two years later, in reviewing the experience, I think that a better analogy would be that when I discovered his cheating, drug dealing, and complete second life, it was like stepping on a grenade and having my entire body blow up and scatter into pieces.

I am still putting the pieces together. I will never be the person whom I was before he tricked me. I will never be able to trust anyone as much as I trusted him. I will always be on my guard. But I am getting stronger.

If you are new to this, if your heart is recently broken by a Cluster B-type, then hang in there. It isn’t easy, but you can get through.

I have lived a hard life, full of challenges. I did not need him to come back into my life after an absence of twenty years. I did not need him to catch me in his web of lies. However, he did catch me and I did fall.

I will survive. All of what’s left. I may not be whole, but I can pick up the pieces of my broken being and put them back together and move forward.

Blessings to all who come here! May your sorrows be lessened with each passing moment.

Forgive yourselves; falling prey to a Cluster B is NOT your fault. They are pathological liars and predators.